When I Grow Up I Want to Be a Housewife

photo credit: http://artdecoblog.blogspot.com/2006_07_30_archive.html


For all you real stay at home moms out there: don't hate me. I do understand that I live in a world overwrought by flights of fancy, one of which includes a long held desire to be a housewife. Of course, in this fantasy, my house is spotlessly clean and I spend my days trying out new recipes for those endless dinner parties I host. Quite honestly, if I could figure out how to work out of my house on a full-time basis I would be in heaven!

I love all things pertaining to the home and creating a welcoming home. I subscribe to the magazines of hearth and home (in my sweetly compulsive way I love speculating on the editorial differences between, for example, Good Housekeeping and Ladies Home Journal), I cook with abandon and the holidays are excuses to throw a theme-related party. I want to be Martha Stewart back in her Turkey Hill days. I enjoy being at home with friends and family more than just about anywhere else (okay, truth be told, I also love to travel....but coming home is also nice.). What draws me to the fantasy is the notion of creating a beautiful and peaceful sanctuary, a refuge to share with others but also to escape for necessary quiet and contemplation and reading. It's a place where I want to mark the seasons with little adornments like mums in autumn, amaryllis in winter, and lilies in spring.

I believe stay at home Moms are wonderful and woefully under appreciated. I also believe that women who have to or choose to pursue careers outside the home are also wonderful and woefully under appreciated for all they have to juggle and give up. So this is not an article on the politics (gender or otherwise) of the issue. In fact, I hope it may be argued that one of the accomplishments of feminism is that women can choose a career at home or outside the home without guilt.

My point is simply to celebrate the joy of creating a home and to celebrate the women who pursue that vocation whether as a full-time stay at home Mom, or as I do, after office hours and on the weekends. Home should be a place of safety and celebration, the place to escape to when the world outside is a bit too rough, or a place of commemoration when the world adorns us with accolades. Given the choice, I would opt for the full-time pursuit of home-keeping. Even if my dream of it is way better than the reality!